The U.S. Department of Energy studied it for about 18 years, from 1978 to 1996. But according to Al Darzins of the DOE's National Renewable Energy Lab, in 1996 the feds decided that algae oil could never compete economically with fossil fuels.AS long as they keep snuffing out any idea that isn't owned by "big oil", we will never have an economic solution to our fuel crisis.

Maybe we should send this to Mayor Dave, and see what he does with it. This would be an extra incentive to clean up our lakes.

This actually isn't a big stretch (chemically), if you look at how wood actually burns. Wood fueled cars were not uncommon at one time in history, and I don't mean steam. You can gasify wood pretty easily. I've done it in aluminum foil over can over a campfire.